The last two weekends have been a flurry of new dining experiences for me in NYC. Here is a quick recap:
Friday 1/12Le Miu - 107 Ave A, near 7th St
Friday night's dinner was a selection we had been meaning to try for quite some time. This modern Japanese restaurant seemed a little too trendy for alphabet city the first few times we've passed it by, but the dishes sounded interesting, and later, we found out that the chefs had previously worked at places such as Nobu and Megu. The setting was nice and the service was pretty good. We got seated immediately (around 9-10pm). We ordered as appetizers the soft shell crab, and rock shrimp, and for entrees miso cod and king crab fried rice. The two fried appetizers were pretty good, and the miso cod was also delicious (although it's been a while since I've had that dish at pricier places). The king crab fried rice was not what I expected -- it came in a sort of a casserole dish and was a little bit more like a soup. But still very good. It's a nice little find in alphabet city.
Saturday 1/13Katz's Delicatessen - 205 E Houston St and Ludlow St
I've been craving potato pancakes and corned beef for quite some time. So when it was my turn to pick a dinner location on Saturday night in the Lower East Side, I decided to go with Katz's Delicatessen. We ended up ordering a corned beef / pastrami combination sandwich, and a plate of potato pancakes. The sandwich was great but it wasn't as huge as I had expected. I can remember times I've been to Stage Deli or Carnegie Deli near Times Square where I couldn't even fit my mouth around the sandwich. Despite the warning that "it would be hard to finish," my Katz's Deli sandwich was not as big. It was still very very tasty. The potato pancakes were also good - much better than the last potato pancakes I had at the Ukranian joint, Veselka. I still can't figure out why they have this silly ticket system at Katz's that involves getting a ticket when you come in and then showing it when you leave, or else you have to pay $50. Of course, they only take cash. There was a cool letter on the back wall from a soldier during the Vietnam War requesting a salami be mailed to him. The signs say the hot dogs are great but at $2.75 a pop I'm hesitant to try. Anyway for hot dogs I want to check out Crif Dogs in the East Village.
Sunday 1/14Cafe Gitane - 242 Mott St, between Prince and Houston
Brunch on Sunday at Cafe Gitane. I had never been here before but my lady friend said it was a great place for brunch. She was right. Sometimes I get intimidated by French places because I'm afraid of mispronouncing the names of the dishes since I don't speak French. We ordered the Tuna spread, toasted baguette with cherry tomato and endive salad, along with the roasted chicken sandwich (with chipotle mayo, parmesan and roasted tomato on a baguette). Both dishes were delicious. I was very impressed with the sandwich, although I wish it was a little bigger. They only took cash also. We had to wait about 10 minutes for a table for 5.
Friday 1/19I Coppi - 432 E 9th St, between 1st and A
The next weekend took us to I Coppi, an East Village Italian joint that again, my lady friend had been eyeing. The front has a nice, cute look to it, but the back was even nicer with an indoor garden. It reminded us of another restaurant, August, that had a smaller but similar back room. Our meal started with the Carpaccio con Rucola e Grana, which I really liked. Rare meat plus hard shaved cheese equals tasty in my book. For entrees we shared Tagliatelle alla Boscaiola - a great al dente ribbon shaped pasta with a "spicy meat sauce" and Gallello al Mattone, a grilled, brick oven roasted chicken. The pasta was great, and probably homemade. The chicken was not as good in my opinion, as it could have used a little more meat and was a little dry from the brick oven. Everything was good here, and the slow service I had heard about was nowhere to be seen. To get nitpicky, the bread they brought didn't taste that good. I easily made a reservation for a Friday night about one week in advance.
Room 4 Dessert - 17 Cleveland Pl, between Spring and Kenmare
After eating dinner at I Coppi, we went across town to Room 4 Dessert, which is an all-dessert bar. I had heard about it the day before in New York Magazine as a "must eat" for 2007. They compared it to the East Village joint, Chikalicious, also a dessert bar. Chikalicious serves a prix fixe, three course dessert in a small, bright bar setting. We got to Room 4 Dessert at 11pm, and while I had made a reservation, we didn't seem to need it. There were enough seats at the bar. It was nice they took reservations (Chikalicious does not). The setting was dark and the bar is configured as a long bar. The menu is a little different. We had a "Dessert glass" to start, which is a small glass with a bunch of dessert elements mixed together. Ours had a cola ice cream, cracker jacks and some other sweets. I forgot its name but it was very good. Then we shared two Dessert "Tastings" which are long plates with four dessert elements. The first was called Apple in Various States, which featured four different apple-ish variations (and all were quite good), and the name of the second escapes me but it included a great brioche and a rich chocolate setting. We didn't get drinks but they have a nice menu system that pairs the drinks with each dish.
Saturday 1/20Krunch Pizza Bar - 980 2nd Ave at 52nd St
In a quest for something new, my brother suggested Krunch Pizza Bar. It's sort of a trendy pizza place, and slices were close to $3 a pop for a square piece of pizza, but they had some nice variations. We tried the BBQ Pollo, Pizza agli Spinaci (mozzarella and spinach), Krunch Zucca (zucchini, onion, garlic and parmesan - no tomato) Chorizo and Cheeseburger pizza. All of them were good. The pizzas had a very crispy crust and fresh toppings. I would eat here a lot, except that the price per slice is pretty high. Two slices and a drink = 8.75!
New Green Bo - 66 Bayard St between Mott and Elizabeth
For dinner, I had been craving some Shanghai delicacies. Unfortunately, we heard that a friend had been to our favorite, Yeah Shanghai Deluxe and saw roaches crawling on the tables!! So we decided to try somewhere new. There was another Shanghai restaurant on Bayard near Elizabeth but we nixed it for having too many white people in it. Instead we headed to New Green Bo, which we had heard was good but had never been. We ordered soup dumplings (xiao luom bao), pork shoulder (ti pang), a casserole and some shanghai noodles with mixed meat/seafood. The meal overall was a bit greasy, the pork shoulder was drier than it should have been, but the sauce was good. We didn't wait long and we didn't have to share a table (around 7:30pm). The dumplings were great. A little disappointing but the dishes still cured my craving.
Sunday 1/21Bondi Road - 153 Rivington between Suffolk and Clinton
We walked by this place one night and it looked cool. Then we saw that they had a brunch special that included all-you-can-drink and we were sold. It's sort of a barebones place but the waitress is Australian and according to my brother, who studied in Australia, they tried to keep the menu pretty authentic. It was pretty empty at about 1pm on Sunday -- I think the crowd here tends to come later in the afternoon and for dinner. Unfortunately a lot of the dinner menu items weren't available, but what we had was still very good. We got fish and chips, and a variation of eggs benedict that was on two crabcakes. I absolutely loved the french fries; they were some of the best fries I've had in a while. The eggs were good too, and the crabcakes weren't bad but now I compare every crabcake to G and M in Maryland, which just isn't fair. But I'm curious about the chicken schnitzel and burger with the lot on the dinner menu. We'll have to come back to this place, which sounds like a lot of fun at night.
Sugar Sweet Sunshine - 126 Rivington between Essex and Norfolk
After brunch, we had to make a quick stop at Sugar Sweet Sunshine, a place my lady friend likes to call "Magnolia of the LES." She's right, too. They have an eclectic set of furniture for seating, sort of out of a hipster's room. But the desserts are delicious, and we had a yellow cake with yellow frosting that was so buttery and sweet, and oh so good. Not a bad way to cap off a fatty lunch of aussie fish and chips, and just down the street.
